Britain’s chief independent economic forecaster today warned that the economic recovery will take years.

Robert Chote, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility,
spoke out when members of the Treasury Select Committee criticised his
forecasts for being too optimistic.

Mr Chote said: “We have been through a very severe financial
crisis. The lessons of history are that a very severe financial crises take
longer to recover from than the standard ‘allowing inflation to get out of
control and then having to rein that back’.”

His comments came amid claims that disruption caused by the
cold weather could tip the country into a technical triple-dip recession.

Members of the cross-party Treasury Select Committee
questioned Mr Chote about the accidental release of Budget information ahead of
George Osborne’s speech by the Evening Standard.

“Not too much damage was done on this occasion,” he said,
but described it as a “wake-up call” for both the Treasury and the Media to
tighten up procedures.

Mr Chote said he had not been surprised by the accidental
release of the material, saying pre-briefing had been “standard practice for
many years”. He said the system had worked fairly well in the past and should
not necessarily be stopped.

“There’s clearly a problem if some of the information that
is given out is very market-sensitive, and there would be some measures where
giving that advanced briefing would not be sensible,” he said. “It’s clearly
risky, but it’s also understandable.”

However, some members of the committee indicated they were
deeply unhappy about the incident. Labour’s John Mann said it affected the
“credibility” of the OBR. He said: “This is your analysis, your figures, that
have been put out by a third party ahead of the Budget.”

The Evening Standard apologised last week after an image of
a planned front page was tweeted in error.